Seeking Alpha – In a 13G filing made with the SEC due to activity on June 9th, 2009, Lone Pine Capital has disclosed a 7.7% ownership stake in Smithfield Foods (SFD). This is a brand new position for Stephen Mandel’s hedge fund and it now owns 11,116,850 shares. Lone Pine previously did not show a position in SFD when we looked at its entire portfolio, so it has just recently entered the position over the past 2 months or so. In terms of other big bets Lone Pine has made recently, we saw that Mandel likes Strayer Education. He presented this choice at the 2009 Ira Sohn Conference where numerous hedge fund managers each presented an investment idea.

His $7 Billion fund has returned over 25% annually since its inception in 1997, but had a rough year in 2008. The term ‘lone pine’ comes from Mandel’s days at Dartmouth College, where the school has a historical lone pine tree. He is well versed in the ways of finding undervalued companies and he typically likes to sniff out solid companies with good management that are trading below their intrinsic value. In Alpha’s 2009 hedge fund rankings list, Lone Pine was ranked 21st.

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Reuters – Hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners said it is not pulling out of high-profile investments like The New York Times Co. and Media General Inc., seeking to quell market rumors after their share prices dropped sharply on Monday.

Philip Falcone, who runs the hedge fund, told Reuters that investors would be mistaken if they thought selling by Harbinger was behind the double-digit percentage declines in stocks it holds, including the Times, Media General Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. and Calpine Corp.

"People are speculating as to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, but the reality is different from what they think," Falcone, Harbinger’s senior managing director, said in a phone interview.

He said that while their main fund’s composition has changed since its most recent 13 F regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 13, Harbinger remained bullish on its investments.

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